Ring back tone is an audio played for a calling party before a called party picks up the telephone and answers the call initiated by the calling party. The coloring ring back tone service developed presently becomes more and more popular due to its strongly customizable service. In the coloring ring back tone service, various audio files may be played for the calling party in accordance with the configuration of the user, and further, different ring back tones may be configured for different calling parties. For example, a group ring back tone or a default ring back tone may be configured. As for the group ring back tone, an audio file is configured for a contact group in the address book by the user, the sound of the audio file is the ring back tone for the group. As a contact user of the contact group initiates a call to the user, the contact user who is a calling party will hear the sound of this audio file. As for the default ring back tone, there is no special ring back tone configured for the contact users in the address book by the user. Therefore, when such a contact user initiates a call to the user, the default ring back tone configured by the user may be heard by the contact user. The coincidence relation between the calling party and the audio file configured by the user is stored in a ring back tone platform. When a calling party initiates a call, the ring back tone platform plays the corresponding audio file for the calling party in accordance with the stored coincidence relation between the calling party and the audio file.
Ringing tone is an audio played for the called party by the user terminal of the called party when the user is called. The user may configure different ringing tones for different calling parties via the user terminal, such as a group ringing tone and a default ringing tone. As for the group ringing tone, it means that an audio file is configured for a contact group in the address book by the user, the sound of the audio file is the ringing tone for the group. When a contact user of the contact group initiates a call to the user, the called party will hear the sound of the corresponding audio file. As for the default ringing tone, it means that no special ringing tone is configured for the contact users in the address book by the user. Therefore, when such a contact user initiates a call to the user, the default ringing tone configured by the user may be heard by the called party.
Presently, there exist three ring back tone schemes, i.e. intelligent network scheme, calling party end office scheme and called party end office scheme. An example of the present schemes includes following steps:
Step A: a calling party initiates a call to a service switching point (SSP), the SSP triggers an intelligent service in accordance with a ring back tone service tag in the call, and reports the tag to a service control point (SCP), the SCP obtains the ring back tone number and sends the number to the SSP.
Step B: the SSP initiates a call to the called party and the ring back tone platform respectively in accordance with the ring back tone number obtained.
Step C: a voice channel via the SSP is determined under the control of the SSP, where the voice channel connects the called party and the calling party, and a voice channel via the SSP is established and activated under the control of the SSP, where the voice channel connects the ring back tone platform and the calling party.
Step D: the ring back tone platform plays a coloring ring back tone for the calling party via the voice channel between the ring back tone platform and the calling party.
Step E: the called party picks up the telephone, so as to activate the voice channel between the calling party and the called party, and the calling party and the called party communicate with each other through the voice channel. Meanwhile, the SSP terminates the connection with the ring back tone platform and releases the resources of the ring back tone platform.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the architecture of a system for downloading and configuring the ringing tone in the prior art. As shown in FIG. 1, the system includes: a ringing tone download server, a push proxy gateway (PPG), a wireless application protocol (WAP) gateway and a mobile terminal. The ringing tone download server is adapted to provide the PPG with information of the ringing tone selected by the user, and provide the mobile terminal with the ringing tone via the WAP gateway in accordance with a ringing tone downloading request from the mobile terminal. The PPG is adapted to constitute a Push message in accordance with the ringing tone information from the ringing tone download server, and send the Push message including ringing tone download information to the mobile terminal. The mobile terminal is adapted to connect with the WAP gateway in accordance with the Push message from the PPG, send a ringing tone downloading request to the ringing tone download server via the WAP gateway, and download the ringing tone provided by the ringing tone download server via the WAP gateway. Since the information exchange between the mobile terminal and the WAP gateway is implemented based on WAP, and the information exchange between the WAP gateway and the ringing tone download server is implemented based on the hyper text transfer protocol (HTTP), the WAP gateway is adapted to implement the protocol conversion for the information that is exchanged between the mobile terminal and the ringing tone download server. Further, the mobile terminal is adapted to configure the received ringing tone as the ringing tone for a corresponding contact user in the address book in accordance with the operation of the user. The PPG is mainly adapted to implement the active push of the information, receive the push request of the WAP information from the ringing tone download server, and provide the mobile terminal with the WAP information.
Further, the information exchange between the ringing tone download server and the PPG is implemented based on the Push Access Protocol (PAP), and the information exchange between the PPC and the mobile terminal is implemented based on the Push Over-The-Air protocol (P-OTA).
The user may log on the ringing tone download server via PC or mobile terminal and select the ringing tone to be downloaded. When the user logs on the ringing tone download server via PC, the PC logs on the ringing tone download server through Internet, and the user may select the ringing tone to be downloaded through the interaction between the PC and the ringing tone download server. When the user logs on the ringing tone download server via the mobile terminal, the mobile terminal logs on the ringing tone download server through the WAP gateway, and the user may select the ringing tone to be downloaded through the interaction between the mobile terminal and the ringing tone download server.
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the flow chart for downloading and configuring the ringing tone in the prior art. As shown in FIG. 2, the process of downloading and configuring the ringing tone includes the following steps:
Step 201-Step 202: a user logs on the ringing tone download server via PC or mobile terminal, and selects the ringing tone to be downloaded through the interaction between the ringing tone download server and the PC or the mobile terminal.
Step 203: when the ringing tone to be downloaded is selected by the user, the ringing tone download server provides the PPG with information of the ringing tone selected by the user.
Step 204: when the PPG receives the ringing tone information, it constitutes a Push message according to the ringing tone information, and then sends the Push message including the download information of the ringing tone to the mobile terminal. In the subsequent steps, the mobile terminal is considered, and PC is not considered.
Step 205-Step 206: the mobile terminal receives the Push message, connects to the WAP gateway in accordance with the Push message, and sends a ringing tone downloading request to the WAP gateway. When the WAP gateway receives the ringing tone downloading request, it sends the ringing tone downloading request to the ringing tone download server, and requests to download the corresponding ringing tone.
Step 207: after receiving the ringing tone downloading request, the ringing tone download server provides the WAP gateway with the ringing tone selected by the user.
Step 208: after receiving the ringing tone, the WAP gateway provides the mobile terminal with the ringing tone selected by the user.
Step 209: after receiving the ringing tone, the mobile terminal sends a reception acknowledgement to the WAP gateway, for notifying the WAP gateway that the ringing tone is successfully received.
Step 210: after receiving the reception acknowledgement, the WAP gateway sends the ringing tone sending result to the ringing tone download server, for notifying the ringing tone download server to complete the present ringing tone download.
Step 211: when receiving the ringing tone, the mobile terminal may configure the ringing tone to be the ringing tone for the corresponding contact user in the address book according to the operation of the user.
There is no evident temporal sequence when executing Step 209-Step 210 and Step 211. Step 209-Step 210 and Step 211 may be executed at the same time; or it is possible to execute Step 209-Step 210 first, and then execute Step 211; or it is also possible to execute Step 211 first, and then execute Step 209-Step 210.
FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing the system for configuring the ring back tone in the prior art. As shown in FIG. 3, the system includes: peripheral equipment, a WEB server and a ring back tone platform. The peripheral equipment is adapted to log on the ring back tone platform via the WEB server, and request the ring back tone platform to configure the ring back tone. The ring back tone platform is adapted to configure the ring back tone of the user terminal in accordance with the ring back tone configuring request, and store the coincidence relation between the ring back tone configured and the calling party. The WEB server is adapted to implement the protocol conversion for the information exchanged between the peripheral equipment and the ring back tone platform. The information exchange between the peripheral equipment and the WEB server is implemented based on HTTP, and the information exchange between the WEB server and the ring back tone platform is implemented based on the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). The peripheral equipment may be a PC.
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the flow chart of configuring the ring back tone in the prior art. As shown in FIG. 4, the process of configuring the ring back tone includes the following steps:
Step 401: the peripheral equipment requests to log on the ring back tone platform, the ring back tone platform performs authentication on the peripheral equipment. When the authentication is passed, the peripheral equipment logs on the ring back tone platform.
Step 402-Step 403: the peripheral equipment sends a ring back tone configuring request to the WEB server, requests to configure the ring back tone. When the ring back tone configuring request is received, the WEB server sends the ring back tone configuring request to the ring back tone platform.
Step 404: when the ring back tone configuring request is received, the ring back tone platform configures the ring back tone for the user terminal in accordance with the ring back tone configuring request, and stores the coincidence relation between the calling party and the ring back tone configured.
Step 405-Step 406: when the configuration of the ring back tone is finished, the ring back tone platform returns the ring back tone configuring result to the WEB server, so as to notify the peripheral equipment that the ring back tone is successfully configured. When the ring back tone configuring result is received, the WEB server sends the ring back tone configuring result to the peripheral equipment.
During the research, it is found by the inventor that interconversion between the ringing tone and the ring back tone cannot be implemented in the prior art.
Since the ringing tone and the ring back tone cannot be interconverted into each other in the prior art, it cannot be ensured that the ringing tone and the ring back tone of the same sound may be stored on the terminal and the network side. Even if the ringing tone and the ring back tone of the same sound are stored on the terminal and the network side, because the configuration of the ringing tone and the ring back tone is separated and no correlation exists between them, the configuration has to be initiated and performed respectively, when a user wants to configure the same ringing tone and ring back tone for a contact user or contact group. Therefore, the configuration of the ringing tone and the ring back tone has to be initiated respectively by the user, the operation is fussy, and much inconvenience is brought about with the user, and is not good for the development and application of the ring back tone service and the ringing tone download service.